Old Blueberry Stone (Apologies to Curly Fletcher) NOTE: There ain't no chorus!

I was hangin' 'round town just a-wastin' my time, Nothin' to spend, not even a dime When a feller steps up and he says, "I suppose You're a gunslingin' man by the looks of your clothes." "You guessed me right, and a good one," I claim, "Do you happen to have any gunslingers to tame?" He says, "I've got one and a bad one at that; You kin see he's a bad one cuz he wears a black hat."

I gets all excited and I ask what he pays To gunsling for him for a couple of days. He offers me ten, I says, "I'm your man, For there's no gun ever made that I couldn't fan; He says, "Get your saddle, ya big old Walloon." We gets into his buckboard and rode to the saloon.

Well, standin' outside and him all alone, Was an ugly old fella named Blueberry Stone. His legs were splayed and he had pigeon toes, Little pig eyes and a big Roman nose. His ears were all pierced from the top to the tip, And six forty-fives a-ridin' his hips, He's ugly and old, and he swallers his chaw, You can see with one eye he's a reg'lar outlaw.

Well I puts on my guns and likewise my boots, And I says, "Hey, Blueberry, you're an ugly galoot!" I knew him on sight, I'd dealty with him before, I was powerful glad for my twin forty-fours, Likewise my forty-fives, and my small twenty-two, Three derringer guns, and my old thirty-two, And the folks they all scattered to left and to right Cuz no one in their right mind likes any gun fight.

He went for for his guns without even "My Lands!" And before you could spit he had two in his hands He hits me in hat and right near my left boot While I was a-standin' there countin' my loot But I slaps my leather while watchin' my step For I'm still determined on buildin' a rep. I puts one in his shoulder and one in the groin, Yes, I'm slappin' leather and feelin' just fine.

Well, I dodge to the right and I dodge to the left Cuz I don't want to leave all my kinfolk bereft. I wheel and I turn and he does the same, We both know the rules of the gunslingin' game Then he runs out of guns to grab and to throw But I've still got one and it's then that he knows That at this gun flingin' he's sure met his match And I throws it just like we're some kids playin' catch.

Well, I've known many gun flingers though out my life, Some of 'em single and some with a wife, But Blueberry Stone he was one of the best He'd grab and he'd throw and outdo the rest, But one thing I've learned as I've lived my long life I can out-throw anyone with my Colt forty-five!

Back when I went to Basic Combat Training with the US Army I weighed in at 72 pounds and, at 4'8", was a puny weakling. Bigger guys were always kicking sand in my face and stealing my Coca-Cola as well as my girlfriend. Six months later, after good Army chow and training, I stood 6'2" and weighed 200 pounds, all muscle (except my brain). And the next time someone kicked sand in my face I taught him who was boss!

Best chicken stew yet. And I just made it to 174# this morning! Sigh. This is gonna be a rough Friday night. To stew or not to stew, that is the diet. Whether tis nobler to pig out or suffer the slings and arrows of the scales on the morrow... alas... I am... fuck it... I am piggin out! I'll lose the weight shovelling on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Why waste it? Put pieces in your crab traps or use it for fishing bait. If you don't expect to be fishing any time soon disposal by burial in the compost also works, but shredded is better than intact.

I suppose disposing of a deceased simian hallucination in both the Chicago River and Lake Michigan would require at least a modicum of cutting, slicing, sawing, hacking, chopping and severing. That's definitely a good thing. But, hey, If you're going to go through all that cutting, slicing, sawing, hacking, chopping and severing, why not just cut, slice, saw, hack, chop and sever into smaller pieces, take them down to Millennium Park, and feed them to the pigeons?

Personally, I would hope the next time Chongo appears it is in an ill-fated role. Good guy, bad guy, innocent bystander, it doesn't really matter as long as someone shoots the fleabitten hallucination, ties a cinder block to its ankles, and throws it into either The Chicago River or Lake Michigan. Take your pick.

I have, with the aid of better weather, been able to clear ALL of the ice out of Mum's driveway as of yesterday afternoon. She's been able to walk in her driveway for two days as she doesn't go further than the sidewalk, which was heavily iced over. And, she will be able to do same for today through Saturday. Sunday? Different story. I knew it would come soon... last quarter moon tomorrow.

There's no need for FTL travel. We already have WTF travel, which is at least as fast and requires no heavy equipment. To experience WTF travel, one need only drink to the point of oblivion, whereupon one will instantaneously be transported to a totally different place where one will awaken asking, "Where the fuck am I and what the fuck am I doing here?"

You may speak of the awful dark black holes in space, And the grip of their terrible suction. You may sing of a nova burning flesh from your face And the Big Bang's incredible ruction. You may swoon about starlight and flinch from the glare You may shake at the scope of the Great Everywhere But the one thing that surely will raise up your hair Is the prospect of alien abduction.

For surely a real man would rather eat space Or die in a sun's boiling suction OR be torn inside out by the vacuum, erased By a sun-flares amazing induction. Oh, he'd rather be torched by a comet in passing Or boiled by far Venus' torrid out-gassing Than think of the fate of his poor human ass in The event of an alien abduction.

I know that every now and then I gotta step in here and drop a few choice words of wisdom to keep you hapless bozos on the straight and narrow. So here I am. What I got to say is brief. Shape up! Time is wastin', see? When I come back, maybe in a few days if yer lucky, I expect to see a major improvement in yer posts, yer attitude, and yer intelligence. And no excuses!

BWL, I HAD A GREEN TRIKE when I was a kid. In particular, I broke my leg (falling off our back yard swingset) in second grade. Three months in a full-length leg cast and my parents wanted me to get exercise, so they bought me a big green trike. I rode that sucker everywhere. It seems to have worked - though my now-ex tells me I have a funny gait. I managed to climb mountains for several years before I moved away from the Pacific NW. And I'm working on that "funny gait" - taking belly dance classes. Boy, do those change your gait!

Amos, I disagree. Freeing the self involves totally subjugating the self to the will of another. Let me know when you want to start; in the meantime, you can make a very small beginning to free yourself by sending me all of your money and guitars. All of it and them.

My mileage never varies. If I drive from home to the library by my usual route, it's always 10.3 miles. If my mileage varied I might make that drive tomorrow and have it be 5.7 miles, or drive it next Tuesday and have it be 37 miles. If mileage varied, nobody'd get to work on time because they wouldn't know whether their commute was going to be three miles or a hundred-and-three. Chaos would ensue!

See, that's what I'm talking' about, man! Ya know? You start catering to all the agreements about what is and what should be and -- blamm! -- they gotcha in the Matrix, ya know? Ya gotta exercise the sovereign power of disagreement, is what I say. Your mileage may vary.

It has occurred to me that, to the best of my memory, my childhood tricycle was green. But, with the exception of that one example, I don't think I've ever seen a tricycle that wasn't predominately red. Perhaps my parents, sensing the extraordinary person whom I would become, scoured the world over for a non-red tricycle so I would be unique. Or maybe they just got a really good deal because all the normal kids wanted red tricycles like everyone else.

Thanks for that advice, Amos. As I create my sovereign universe I shall model it on a pogo stick, not a little red tricycle. As I see it, the problem with red tricycle universes is that one must travel through all the debris fields which inhabit a universe's outer limits before arriving at the great whatsis in the center. In a pogo stick universe, you can bounce right over those fuckers.

I visualized pea green soup and immediately thought of the time I did that. My mother had hit a big sale on peas and we ate peas -- and only peas -- for a month. Finally I started the problem mentioned, and she first thought of renting me to restaurants and then decided they would object to the source of the soup and so would the health department. So after filling a few gallon jars for the pantry and the neighbors she began to feed me in the old style (crusts of moldy bread and water from the ditch outside the house) and I returned to normal. Or whatever that is for me.

I'm visualizing frozen peas, but they're boring. I think I'll visualize split pea soup, which is a bit more interesting. But, you know, I really don't like split pea soup. It's disgusting. I'd rather visualize bean with bacon soup. But actually, I'm not all that fond of beans either. I think I'll leave them out and just visualize bacon. Three crispy slices with two scrambled eggs and an order of biscuits with sausage gravy. Heck, toss in a large cup of Kona coffee while we're at it. Straight, 100% Kona, not that Kona blend crap.

A nice girl removed the stitches at the Doc's direction and although it pinched a few times I suffered it manfully for the sake of her gentle touch and sweet apologies. I told her it was hard to believe I paid good money to go through all this and she replied with buoyant good cheer that she couldn't WAIT to get a face lift. I told her that was fine if that was what she wanted but I didn't see that she needed one. We got on famously, but all too soon the stitches were out and I was back with the famous surgeon, who was much less appealing although a perfect gent. Anyway, my eyeballs are swollen like -- well never mind like what-- but it sure is a relief not to have those ugly threads waving in front of them like Venusian antennae. Tomorrow will be a better day. Meanwhile--visualize frozen peas!

Lobsters in the fridge and painters on the ridge, and everything is fine with MOAB!

Hey, Mom! I'm gonna get all them stitches out. I look about as ugly as a wet painter in a dungheap, myself, but soon I will be the talko' the town with my scintillating beauty, such that it will even outshine the nebulous BWL and the nefarious Rapparree in sheer scintillating devilish masculine corona. Just you wait.

Meanwhile these last few days have been nearly the most unproductive of my short and ultimately meaningless life. Why I managed to catch up on all the John Carter of Mars books! There's a feat for ya! I always did suffer from flattish feats. I inherited it from my grandmother's uncle, Flattish Feats, Junior, who got it from his Dad, Flattish the First.

Wake up, Mom, you brainless old heifer! It's already 11:30! You forgot to set your clock ahead, didn't you? Now you're going to be late for brunch with the Red Hat girls.......

Oh, never mind. You can't go anyway. You spilled a Long Island Ice Tea on your only purple dress last week, remember? And you took it to the dry cleaners on Wednesday. And you were supposed to pick it up yesterday but you started playing video poker and forgot. Now you can't pick it up 'cause it's Sunday and the cleaners are closed. And you certainly can't go to a Red Hat Society event without your purple dress. That's almost as bad as going without your red hat. But don't worry. You didn't want those weak-assed mimosas anyway. You'd really rather stay home and get blotto drinking Old Granddad straight out of the bottle.

Hi, Mom! Daylight savings time starts tonight! Don't forget to set your clock ahead an hour before retiring for the evening. We'd hate for you to be late for brunch with the Red Hat Society girls. And no pissing and moaning about how you missed that hour's sleep and now you feel all disoriented. Just get over it. You can sleep an extra hour in November.